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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Role Playing (Games) Apple

Free 3D MMORPG Planeshift Ported To Mac OS X 55

Posted by timothy from the imaginary-creatures-dying-in-droves dept.
superfebs writes "While Planeshift, the free (yes, as in Freedom, who cares otherwise) 3D MMORPG, is moving towards the 0.3 version, which will provide combat (read: flows of fresh blood), the current release has been ported to Mac OS X. Now more people can enjoy going around in a fantasy world chatting with others and collecting crystals. Oh, beta testers are needed."
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Free 3D MMORPG Planeshift Ported To Mac OS X More

Free 3D MMORPG Planeshift Ported To Mac OS X

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  • Porting work (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:38PM (#11027793)
    It wasn't so much "Ported" as it was "recompiled and distributed" for the Mac, thanks to the excellent cross-platform work of the Crystal Space 3D engine team!

    Just to clarify, this version of Planeshift has not been released to the general public, and the Mac & Windows & Linux versions should be released fairly simultaneously.

    Thanks to all the PlaneShift & Crystalspace developers!
    Daniel Fryer

    • Re:Porting work (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cecil ( 37810 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @11:22PM (#11028165) Homepage
      Umm, there is more to PlaneShift than the CrystalSpace engine. I know this, because I tried (and failed) to port it to Mac several months ago. Particularly troublesome were several parts of the network layer, in my experience.

      There was certainly more to it than simply recompiling and distributing.

      • Re:Porting work (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @11:42PM (#11028374)
        There were a couple endianness bugs, and a few weird cross platform issues which I took care of. There is still probably some mac-specific optimization that can be done (and optimization in general) in Crystal Space, but no code in Planeshift is platform specific, unless I've forgotten some.

        Daniel Fryer

        • Re:Porting work (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Cecil ( 37810 )
          Apologies if you're actually Daniel Fryer, I assumed it was just someone trolling on Slashdot and signing your name, but the reply makes me think otherwise. If it is you, much thanks and keep up the good work.

          In any case, I ran into quite a few conflicts between the networking header files and the OS X Frameworks I was trying to include. But that was at least 6 months ago, and it may have been cleaned up in that time, as there was discussion on the IRC channel about doing that. (Might've been you, for all

      • Re:Porting work (Score:3, Interesting)

        by QuantumG ( 50515 )
        I'd just like to point out that dfryer actually did the Mac OS X port.. so telling him he there was more to it than what he actually did is pretty silly.

  • Meh. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Solder Fumes ( 797270 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:41PM (#11027827)
    I tried Planeshift a few months ago, and seriously it's just not something that should even be out there yet. Lots of bugs, limited map, the only thing you could do was run around to all the same places and pick up crystals. To get enough crystals to buy a weapon (though all you could do was hold it) would have taken about 20 hours of playtime. That was an awfully long time to stand in the middle of a room waiting for crystals to grow back, so I uninstalled it. I'll pay attention to these guys when they reach 1.0 release. Just because it's free doesn't mean it's any good.

    • Re:Meh. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Exactly, Planeshift is currently in the "tech demo" stage. It's not even a beta, people! The current "Planeshift community" is made up of people who have made some friends around the game, and enjoy hanging out and flaming each other, and having nonexistant wars with nonexistant guilds.

  • Thanks but, (Score:5, Informative)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:43PM (#11027843) Homepage Journal
    we're no longer in search of testers for the Mac port. The response to our very first email out was overwelming so the last thing we need is more Mac users hounding us for it. The name of the next release is Crystal Blue, which we generally refer to as CB. It will have combat, crafting a vague semblance of an economy. Note that although this release will be playable we're not calling it a "game" - we're still in the tech demo stage. We're still looking for 2d/3d artists, people with pen-and-paper/boardgame GM experience, and C++ coders. Drop by #planeshift on irc.freenode.net if you're interested in contributing.
    • Also, just a nit to pick, the article summary would appear to be incorrect. It asks for *beta* testers. The beta stage is when a piece of software is feature complete, and only has bugs to be worked out. From the sounds of it, the game is still very much in the alpha stage where features are being added/removed/altered all the time.
    • Crystal Blue - have you people been playing Terranigma? It was an old SNES zelda-like action/RPG, and in the first area you started in, people commented on seeing Crystal Blue (iridescent floating bubbles) in the sky...

  • Planeshift is not free as in Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by maxgilead ( 243900 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:45PM (#11027853)

    Planeshift as a project has three licenses - code is under GPL (free), art (music, sound, maps, models, textures) are under Planeshift license (non-free), I'm not sure about the third one.

    Quoting from Planeshift license:

    "You may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, sell, participate in the transfer or sale or reproduce, create Derivative Works from, distribute, perform, display or in any way exploit any of the Material released under this License unless expressly permitted by the PlaneShift Team."

    That's free as in Freedom?! Free as in beer sure, but not as in Freedom, not even close. I wish all the best to Planeshift team, just let's not pretend its Free as in Freedom project when it's not.

    • Re:Planeshift is not free as in Freedom (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Planeshift Engine is Free as in Freedom, the Planeshift game world / art / etc. is "only" free as in beer. Mostly this is to prevent fracturing/fragmenting of the game world over small disagreements, should they *ever* occur

      • In todays games code is only small part of a game, nobody can claim (story submitter in our case) that the whole project is free software when only some part of it is. Of course it's project authors' sole decision and nobody's saying they did something wrong, let's just be precise how things are.

        Of course having restrictive license to prevent forks is disputable practice at best, but consinuing it would be good start for a flamewar so let's skip it ;-)

    • Forgot to mention the part that gives 'free as in beer' rights:

      You may use the provided Material, for personal use only, to connect to an Official PlaneShift Server only in conjunction with a Planeshift Client, distributed by the Planeshift Team. Offical PlaneShift Servers can only be designated by PlaneShift Team.

      Full license text is at http://www.planeshift.it/pslicense.html

    • Re:Planeshift is not free as in Freedom (Score:5, Informative)

      by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:51PM (#11027899) Homepage Journal
      You know, you're absolutely right. No-one from the Planeshift team wrote the post above, so we're not responsible for it. Planeshift is the name of a game. The game engine is Free but the artwork is not. We'd love to make a game where all the artwork was under some Free license but none of us coders can draw and none of the artists we have ever met are interested in releasing stuff under a Free license. If you would like to russle up some artists who will contribute under a free license we'll gladly accept their work.. but it's been our experience that the vast majority of graphics artists find the concept of free licenses scary and foriegn and simply won't contribute their work under such conditions.

      • Re:Planeshift is not free as in Freedom (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @11:55PM (#11028500)
        yes, as in Freedom, who cares otherwise
        Heh. Apparently the submitter cared enough otherwise, seeing as it isn't actually Free. :-)
        --

        graphics artists find the concept of free licenses scary and foreign

        This is understandable: most visual art is unique and based on your own talent, where programming is more about efficiency and the end result. Programming classes tend to ask students to create a "black box" that gives this exact output on these exact inputs. Art classes generally say draw something nice, based on this theme, using this style.

        Thus, programs can be easily shared and modified, rarely can any but the best programmers lay individual claim to code, and the author's style is not evident to the user. Art is individual work, created once and not updated, that even amateurs will sign as their own, and the artist's style is often as important as the subject. It is quite understandable that artists refuse to Free-license their works; it's not necessarily because it's "foreign", but the concepts of free access and changeability simply don't apply to art.

        Someone might mention Creative Commons, but that's for making artwork publicly available, which isn't quite what you're doing here. What you want is something with the essence:

        "This artwork may be freely distributed and used with the Software, and any Derivative Works that retain both the spirit of the Software and the same manner of use of the artwork, provided that a) the artists are credited, b) the artistic aspects, such as subject and style, remain unchanged, and c) any additions to or removals from the set of artwork do not disparage or misportray the original art or its creators. Nothing in this section should be construed to prevent changes to the underlying programming algorithms so long as the visual output remains the same or nearly so."

        IANA-licence-writer, but something like that should allow you to Freely distribute the art with Planeshift, allow Planeshift to be forked X.Org-style along with the art, and convert the art to different formats, yet it would allow the artist to retain control over the work, in the sense that it would only be used with Planeshift or its derivatives. I would guess that you'll have to use a special section for licensing the art, and make that technically non-Free, since you can't derive it at will or change the art itself.

        • This is understandable: most visual art is unique and based on your own talent, where programming is more about efficiency and the end result.

          I don't want to troll but it is really sad to see that people treat programming still this way. Programmers are artist just like "real" artist and in the end they both contribute their own time and talent to the project so they should at least be treated equally.

          • Programmers are artist just like "real" artist and in the end they both contribute their own time and talent to the project so they should at least be treated equally.

            Ideally, this would be true. However, in the real world, nobody knows/cares who wrote this patch or who designed this library, as long as it works with your code - and most likely, nobody will care that you wrote this code, as long as it works with theirs. The best analogue would be commercial artists/graphic designers, such as people who cr
      • WorldForge has a large amount of Free artwork done by artists.
        • Yep, and so did Freecraft.. but not be rude to either project (heh, who am I kiding) it wasn't exactly professional quality art work now was it?
          • And that's not even beginning to get into some of the uglier products of the FOSS "art" community - Open Quartz and Free Doom, two resource packs intended to replace all of the "closed" content of Id's Doom and Quake engines. Fugly does not begin to describe them, at least last time I looked (I hear Quartz recently got a new pack of stuff that looks better tho).
    • So, then, Mozilla and RedHat aren't Free software?

      They have similar rights reserved over their name/art/trademarks.
      • Well, this is somehwat different. Replacing all of the minimum media in Moz or RH wouldn't be that hard for one decent graphic artist - probably a week's work if you rushed and weren't picky, to get it to minimum usable qualtiy. Plus, even if it was ugly, it would still work.

        A game is different - the graphical, sound, and scripted content are a huge body of labour. Look how many 100% free software projects there are, and then compare them to the meagre list of free game projects. Lots of engines, no ga
        • Which is exactly the reason why it doesn't make any sense to develop art for a game under a free license. We don't want hundreds of Planeshifts, we want ONE Planeshift. You wanna make your own game? Cool, use our engine, we've demonstrated that it works. It's just like a MUD: here's the engine, now go design your own world. The only difference is that you have to have a different skill set to make a graphical MUD to a textual one (you have to be able to draw). In a couple of years time a bunch of grap

  • Suggestions for Planeshift (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @11:18PM (#11028119)
    Your avatar should get tired and have to sleep, and also periodically eat or else see your stats go down. If you don't eat for long enough, you die. Also I hope the game world has temperature, and the heat or cold effects your performance as well. Additionally your character should have to go to the bathroom at least once a day. Every now and then sickness should set in. Any crystals you collect should be subject to a tax. And your hair should grow and you must clip your fingernails periodically. And if you don't shower you stink, and your charisma stat goes down -1 every day. Eventually your character can get cancer and die. Plus you have to maintain good dental hygene or your teeth fall out and then ou can't speak correctly. And you can have sex and then babies that you have to dote over and not do any adventuring or crystal-collecting until they are old enough to stay at home alone, or you have to hire a babysitter. And cats that piss on your clothing that merchants won't buy because its so smelly. And bouts of gas along with some serious farting. And once a month female characters won't be controlled and their stats are re-rolled once every 30 seconds. And I want to see perma-death, meaning that once you die the game uninstalls itself. And you can get drunk and have a hangover. And lightsabers.

    Anyway, those are just some of the things I think you should put into your game.

  • Yay, this is good news!

    I know the 'creators' of Planeshift, they have quite a load on their shoulders, making a secure MMO, while allowing others to see their source... Imagine how easy-er to cheat it would be?

    I really would love to see this become a 'great' game. Even though, I don't play many games ('cept CS - not source).

  • Thanks for your partecipation (Score:5, Informative)

    by LucaP ( 838457 ) on Wednesday December 08, 2004 @07:57AM (#11030649)
    Hi, PlaneShift project leader here. We were not aware of this slashdot posting till we found our mailbox filled with alpha test requests :) Thanks for your interest in PlaneShift. The current public version is about 2 years old compared to the current (closed alpha) one. So please don't take the public one as reference. Many new things have been added and now PlaneShift is surely more playable. The fact we are at version 0.3 means we don't propose PS as a finished product, we like to have people see our progresses by releasing "tech demos" at significant development stages. As for the license, consider what we give you as a gamer, a free game with good quality. No cost for the game, no monthly fee. This is what we feel is "Free" for gamers. On the other hand we had to protect our work from spoilers, and so we needed a stronger license on the art/trademarks side. What we really need on the Mac OSX side are more developers. If you are a Mac C++ programmer, consider joining our team! Enjoy PlaneShift!

    • Re:Thanks for your partecipation (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm a member of the 2D/3D team of Planeshift.

      I'd simply like to add I have an experience with open source art before on an other MMORPG, and honestly it didn't work at all.
      Why? Simply because I've seen hours of work being spread away on the net and used by other people/project. Don't tell you have any control on where your file goes if you give it away freely on the web (I have done it too, but on a specialized website with content mainly used as placeholder).

      Having the creative content under a license is

  • MMORPG (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by valkraider ( 611225 )
    So 20 now classifies as "Massively Multiplayer".

    :)

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